"It is not improbable, your highness. He is known to be a daring young fellow, and he has never failed in a siege against the heart of woman. Report has it that he is the most invincible Lothario that ever donned love's armor." Beverly was conscious of furtive glances in her direction, and a faint pink stole into her temples. "Our fugitive princes are lucky in neither love nor war," went on the duke. "Poor Dantan, who is hiding from Gabriel, is betrothed to the daughter of the present prime minister of Dawsbergen, the beautiful Iolanda, I have seen her. She is glorious, your highness."
"I, too, have seen her," said Yetive, more gravely than she thought. "The report of their betrothal is true, then?"
"His sudden overthrow prevented the nuptials which were to have taken place in a month had not Gabriel returned. Her father, the Duke of Matz, wisely accepted the inevitable and became prime minister to Gabriel. Iolanda, it is said, remains true to him and sends messages to him as he wanders through the mountains."
Beverly's mind instantly reverted to the confessions of Baldos. He had admitted the sending and receiving of messages through Franz. Try as she would, she could not drive the thought from her mind that he was Dantan and now came the distressing fear that his secret messages were words of love from Iolanda. The audience lasted until late in the night, but she was so occupied with her own thoughts that she knew of but little that transpired.
Of one thing she was sure. She could not go to sleep that night.
CHAPTER XXI — THE ROSE
The next morning Aunt Fanny had a hard time of it. Her mistress was petulant; there was no sunshine in the bright August day as it appeared to her. Toward dawn, after she had counted many millions of black sheep jumping backward over a fence, she had fallen asleep. Aunt Fanny obeyed her usual instructions on this luckless morning. It was Beverly's rule to be called every morning at seven o'clock. But how was her attendant to know that the graceful young creature who had kicked the counterpane to the foot of the bed and had mauled the pillow out of all shape, had slept for less than thirty minutes? How was she to know that the flushed face and frown were born in the course of a night of distressing perplexities? She knew only that the sleeping beauty who lay before her was the fairest creature in all the universe. For some minutes Aunt Fanny stood off and admired the rich youthful glory of the sleeper, prophetically reluctant to disturb her happiness. Then she obeyed the impulse of duty and spoke the summoning words.
"Wha—what time is it?" demanded the newcomer from the land of Nod, stretching her fine young body with a splendid but discontented yawn.